


Trans Boy Percy Weasley

by wtchpnk



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Based on a Tumblr Post, Bi bill weasley, Coming Out, Dysphoria, Gen, M/M, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, Trans Percy Weasley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-24 17:01:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21881440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wtchpnk/pseuds/wtchpnk
Summary: She’d rather wear Bill and Charlie’s hand-me-downs the rest of her life than ever have to wear a dress again.
Comments: 13
Kudos: 270





	Trans Boy Percy Weasley

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [So how about trans boy Percy Weasley?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3772921) by [jsprgrey (wtchpnk)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wtchpnk/pseuds/jsprgrey). 



> Credit goes to pocketpadfoot on Tumblr for this - I started to reblog the post and ended up accidentally writing over 1k in half an hour (which is some kind of record for me).
> 
> http://pocketpadfoot.tumblr.com/post/116668973060/so-how-about-trans-boy-percy-weasley
> 
> This is an edited version of an earlier work, but I've decided to keep the original up. It's mostly minor changes and about 470 words more than the original.

Persephone has just turned 5 when Arthur is promoted to the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office. To celebrate, he and Molly get each of the children a new outfit of their very own, a small reprieve from a life of hand-me-downs. Persephone is just excited as the rest of the children, until she unwraps the parcel and sees soft pink lace. She stares at her reflection in the mirror, long red hair curling softly over the collar of the dress, feeling horribly awkward. She’d rather wear Bill and Charlie’s hand-me-downs the rest of her life than ever have to wear a dress again. Whether it’s just natural growing or her first bit of accidental magic, the dress no longer fits within a couple months anyway, and Molly tucks it away in the back of her and Arthur’s closet. Ginny can wear it when she’s big enough, although that seems a long way away, tiny as she is. When Bill and Charlie have each outgrown their new outfits and they pass to Persephone, Molly notices that she’s much more excited to throw on their shirts than she had been about the dress, but doesn’t think too much of it. After all, it’s not often Persephone’s had a dress to wear, anyway.

When she’s 6, the accidental magic is undeniable. She hadn't meant to grow Bill's and Charlie’s hair out as long as hers, but they’d been teasing her (Charlie trying to seem cool to his big brother, who’d only been home from Hogwarts for a week and wouldn't shut up about it everything he could do now) about chewing on it the same way she’d sucked her thumb as a baby. When Molly cuts their hair back to its original length, despite Bill’s protests that he actually kind of likes it this way, Persephone insists hers be cut too. Molly finally agrees, if only so she won’t end up in St. Mungo’s with a hairball. Persephone wishes she had cut it shorter than a bob, though, and when she wakes up in the morning with a pixie cut instead, she smiles at her reflection. Charlie looks as though he’s going to tease her about that too, but Bill ruffles her hair approvingly, and helps fashion it into a mohawk later. She’s not too sure about his sense of style, but she has to admit she’s never felt cooler.

At 7, Persephone has had enough of her ridiculous name. She can read pretty well for her age, and finds the name Percy in one of Charlie’s Muggle books (secondhand, of course). It’s much better than Seph or any other alternative she can find, and is reasonably close to her current name. She reads the rest of the series that summer, falling more in love with the name with each book, and eventually works up the courage to tell her parents she doesn’t want to be called Persephone anymore. “I know it’s a boy’s name, but Persephone is too long, and too different from my brothers. And Ginny,” she adds as an afterthought. “And besides, you call her Ginny instead of Ginevra.” Her siblings catch on almost immediately, and by the time she turns 8, neither Molly nor Arthur has called her Persephone in months, and she hasn’t answered to it in even longer.

Molly and Arthur decide she’s finally old enough to be allowed on a broom, even though Bill and Charlie both got to learn a whole year earlier than her. Bill is 13 now and reluctant to go flying with her when he comes home for holidays, but Charlie will take all the practice he can get because he’s determined to make Seeker next year when he can try out. They easily get the twins to agree to run around in the meadow underneath them, pelting them with apples as makeshift Bludgers and cherry tomatoes as makeshift Snitches. When it’s time for lunch, Molly’s magically amplified voice absentmindedly calls “Boys!” out the window, and Percy doesn’t bother bringing it up the way Ginny does any time it happens to her. She does notice Fred and George exchanging a look, already used to being confused for each other and not correcting anyone when they can use it to their advantage. Maybe she ought to wonder why it doesn't bother her, but she’s 8 and self-analysis isn't as interesting as her mother’s cooking.

Her 9th birthday passes and George manages to somehow turn her hair Slytherin green, which neither she nor Molly are pleased about, but Percy is just glad they didn’t turn it pink (like that old dress, which Ginny has grown into now, and is much more willing to wear). When Molly fixes it she makes it grow out a little longer than Percy’s long-ago bob, and Percy glowers for the rest of the day until Molly cuts it to pixie length again after dinner. Three weeks later the twins turn Ron’s teddy bear into a spider the size of a dog, and Percy’s temporarily green, temporarily long hair is forgotten about.

She’s 10 when Ron asks where babies come from, and not satisfied at all with Molly’s brief and startled answer, although Ron takes it in stride and goes back to playing with Bill’s wizard chess set. Later, Molly tells Fred and George to take Ron and Ginny and go play outside (”no brooms!”), and takes Percy aside for a very awkward talk. At the end of it Percy is horrified, and after Molly has left her bedroom, she locks herself in until dinner. That night after she’s sure everyone has gone to sleep, she locks the door again and removes her dressing gown. She pulls out the diagrams Molly had drawn for her and holds the pieces of parchment in front of her body, looking in the mirror. It doesn't sound as though she has any choice in the matter, but still she angrily thinks It’s not fair. I don’t want this. I wish I were a boy instead. The thought is a little startling, unasked for, but she turns one of the pieces of parchment over and on the back draws a different diagram, and it provides some small distraction. She’s helped change diapers and give baths before with both the twins and Ron, and although the drawing is far from being anatomically correct, holding it in front of herself doesn't bring to the surface the same horror she’d felt earlier. She remembers flying and her mother’s call of “Boys!” and not correcting her and, 10 being a lot different than 8, wonders.

The next week, after she catches Bill snogging the Hufflepuff boy he invited to visit for the summer, she again works up her courage and approaches him. He seems pretty baffled, but helps her write to Madam Pince to ask if she could borrow some books even though she’s not a Hogwarts student yet and it’s summer holidays. To Bill’s surprise as much as her own, Madam Pince agrees. (When Bill and the Hufflepuff boy, Myron Wagtail, tell the rest of the family they’re seeing each other, Percy grins widely at them both. She grins more widely still when everyone else either takes it in stride or says, “We already knew, you’re not as sly as you think you are.”)

A Hogwarts owl brings their letters the day Percy turns 11, just over a week before school starts, and after everyone else has grabbed theirs from the stack, the last one left is addressed to Percy and not Persephone. Molly remarks offhandedly that Bill’s had had his full name, William, but she sets the letter down and wraps Percy in a hug. They aren't going to Diagon Alley til the end of that week, and Percy spends most of the nights in between staring in the mirror and whispering quietly. “This is my brother, Percy,” she says, pretending to be Bill or Charlie, she’s not picky which. “It’s his first year. He just turned 11. He likes to read. He’s got a pet rat. His rat's name is Scabbers. He’s the third son in the family. This is my brother, Percy…..” The words feel wrong on his tongue, but oh so right in his head. With continued practice, by the end of the week the words coming out of his mouth flow naturally.

Percy goes down to breakfast the day they’re supposed to go to Diagon Alley, and on the edge of the stairs, out of sight from the kitchen, hears Arthur tell Ron, “Go wake Percy and tell her breakfast’s ready.” He feels the smallest jolt of surprise after spending hours each night trying out new words for himself, and wonders how the rest of his family can not know, can not see written on his face the things he’s come to find out about himself over the past week, months, years. Ron comes around the corner, sees Percy, and yells back to the kitchen, "She's already awake, Dad!" and Percy feels a momentary wave of panic as he realizes he’s going to have to tell them. It seems so obvious.

Still, his parents and two older brothers are all Gryffindors, and it’s likely he'll be one as well, so after they’ve eaten he summons all his courage (it’s easier to find, and it seems there’s more of it, than the previous times). He asks, “Mum? Dad? Can I talk to you before we go?” Fred and George look as though they’re about to start teasing him for being a scared little firstie, even though they’re younger than he is and not even starting Hogwarts for another two years, but Bill gives them A Look that quiets them immediately. In a moment, Charlie has rounded up them, Ron, and Ginny to go get ready, and Molly and Arthur follow Percy outside to the garden, looking as though they too are expecting a case of first year jitters.

"What's up, Perc?" Arthur asks, and for a split second the wave of panic rises again in Percy’s throat, but it's all been falling into place. He catches Bill’s eye through the window, and, pushing the wave back down, starts at the beginning. "Mom, Dad....."

**Author's Note:**

> Myron Wagtail, Bill's boyfriend, is an actual Harry Potter character who would've attended around the same time. He later becomes the lead singer of The Weird Sisters. His HP wiki listing doesn't mention his House, so I took the liberty of making him a Hufflepuff.


End file.
